AFL-CIO Representatives Resign from Presidential Council on Manufacturing

August 15, 2017

Statement by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on his and Thea Lee’s resignation from President Donald Trump’s American Manufacturing Council:

We cannot sit on a council for a president who tolerates bigotry and domestic terrorism. President Trump’s remarks today repudiate his forced remarks yesterday about the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis. We must resign on behalf of America’s working people, who reject all notions of legitimacy of these bigoted groups.

It’s clear that President Trump’s manufacturing council was never an effective means for delivering real policy that lifts working families, and his remarks today were the last straw. We joined this council with the intent to be a voice for working people and real hope that it would result in positive economic policy, but it has become yet another broken promise on the president’s record. From hollow councils to bad policy and embracing bigotry, the actions of this administration have consistently failed working people.

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